“What a crazy sex life these rich dudes have!” Dali whispered to me.

Under normal circumstances, these rich guys wouldn’t stand for such a slighting comment about their private lives for a minute. But in this case, the guy merely lowered his head and said nothing.

I didn’t want to dig too deep in this case. Now that the general direction had been pointed out, I thought it was time to hand the rest to Captain Xing! Now all he had to do was check the surveillance video of the hotel and investigate who the victim might have had affairs with.

“You should get the condom in the trash and test that for poison,” I suggested to Captain Xing. “I think it’s time for me to go back now.”

Captain Xing offered me a ride, but I refused and told him that we could easily take the cab.

“Dude,” Dali whispered, “did you forget something?”

“Forget it,” I sighed. “I’m just gonna let it slide this time.”

“Whoa,” he exclaimed, “when did you become so forgiving?”

As soon as we walked out of the hotel, Dr. Wu called for us from behind and shouted, “Consultant Song! I’m sorry for what just happened. Please forgive me!”

To my surprise, he was about to kneel down. There were many people around us at the time, so I quickly stopped him.

“Please don’t do that, Dr. Wu!” I said. “I was only kidding about the kneeling!”

“No, I was foolish for not recognizing a true talent in front of my eyes!” Dr. Wu admitted with a blush. “I shouldn’t have belittled Traditional Coroners like you! I shouldn’t have believed Old Qin’s words!”

“Don’t worry about it! By the way, I never had any intention to get Dr. Qin into trouble. He just made a bet with me and lost, that’s all.”

Dr. Wu nodded repeatedly as he listened to my explanation.

“Well, after what happened today, I’m convinced that you are a genius. I’d like to learn more about the ancient science of Traditional Coroners. Which books would you recommend me to read?”

“Get yourself a copy of The Collected Cases of Injustices Rectified and start from there,” I suggested. “By the way, I think there’s a lot that we can learn from each other, Dr. Wu.”

“Yes!” nodded Dr. Wu again. “I’d suggest for you to read more forensics textbooks. You might make a lot of new discoveries there!”

I smiled. “I’ve read all the forensic textbooks that would fill the entire curriculum of a four-year college course on forensic science. Pleasure to meet you, Dr. Wu.”

I then turned to leave the shocked Dr. Wu standing there. Dali raised a thumb and exclaimed, “That was so cool, dude!”

Before we got further, I suddenly saw a girl with shoulder-length hair, wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers in front of us. She was holding a kettle in one hand and was pointing a finger at me with her mouth wide open.

Isn’t that Sun Bingxin? I thought. It had been years since we last met and she’d grown into a pretty young woman!

“Song Yang, is that you?” she called out.

“Hello, Bingxin,” I replied. “It’s been a while.”

Dali stared back and forth between me and Bingxin.

“Dude, who’s that hot chick? You know her?”

Before I could answer, Bingxin ran over to us and excitedly cried, “Song Yang-gege![1] How exciting! Come on, give me a hug!”

“Wait, stop!”

I was too late in stopping her. She threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly. The water in her kettle spilled everywhere. She kept calling me ‘Song Yang-gege’ over and over again.

“You never contacted me all these years!” she sulked. “Have you forgotten all about me?”

Dali stared at us in disbelief. His jaw dropped so low you could put a whole egg into his mouth.

It had been seven years since I last saw Sun Bingxin. When I was in junior high school, Sun Tiger somehow persuaded Grandpa to let me spend summer vacation at his house. I stayed there for about half a month, during which I spent most of my time with Sun Bingxin. It was my first time staying in a big city, and she took me everywhere during the day. At night, I would tell her stories of mysterious criminal cases. Afraid, she’d hide under the covers, but she was still too fascinated to tell me to stop.

And now, seven years had gone by, and we were both fourth-year college students.

“You’re just as childish as you used to be,” I said, gently pushing her away. “What would you do if your classmates see you acting this way?”

Sun Bingxin burst out laughing and stuck out her tongue at me.

“So what? I don’t care! What are you doing here anyway, Song Yang-gege?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I just got myself some water and was about to go back to my dorm,” she explained. “I heard the rumors about there being a murder here, so I came to investigate. Then I saw you coming out of the hotel and talking to an old man in a white coat. Did you just solve the case in there?”

I thought it was pointless to conceal it from her, so I nodded and said, “It’s not as impressive as you might think. I just gave them a little advice, that’s all.”

“Really?” asked Bingxin with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t believe you. I’ll ask your friend instead!”

She then asked Dali what happened, and Dali being Dali, spilled out every little detail of what just happened inside earlier. The idiot always lost his mind whenever a pretty girl talked to him. I was so angry I could choke him to death right there.

“I knew it!” cried Bingxin excitedly. “I was suspicious when Dad said a college student was working with the police as a consultant! I should’ve known that it was you!”

I awkwardly smiled in reply. Bingxin went on to ask, “Tell me the truth, how many cases have you solved?”

“Just one or two, and only by luck.”

“I don’t believe you! I’ll ask your friend again!”

And yet again Dali told her that I’d solved seven cases in less than half a year. Bingxin’s jaw dropped and she exclaimed, “No way! That’s amazing! Let’s go get dinner together right now so you can tell me all about it!”

“I’ve already had dinner,” I told her.

“I don’t care! Let’s go!”

She then dragged me to the college cafeteria. Dali kept whispering to me asking about who this hot girl was and why she seemed to be so close to me. I told him she was my childhood friend and that we were practically siblings.

As soon as Dali heard that, he became excited.

“Geez, dude! Why didn’t you tell me you had a hot little sister in the medical school? You have to introduce me to her, dude!”

Bingxin might seem friendly and approachable with me just now, but she was in fact a reserved person. So, I wasn’t sure if Dali had much of a chance with her. Nevertheless, I agreed to introduce him but reminded him to behave himself.

Dali pulled out a comb from his jacket, brushed his hair and winked at me, “Don’t worry. You know I’m the Jay Chou of Nanjiang City!”

We soon entered the college cafeteria, and Bingxin ordered a dozen dishes with her meal card. I told her that we couldn’t possibly finish all the food, but she replied, “It’s okay. The portion size is really small here. It might not even be enough for you boys.”

“Boys aren’t pigs, you know?” I laughed.

Bingxin went on to order all kinds of fried dishes from a small counter at the cafeteria. Then she ordered three bottles of soft drinks from another counter. The cafeteria looked much better than the one in our college. Once we were all seated, Dali introduced himself to Bingxin. She laughed and commented, “Dali? What a unique name!”

“Yup, that’s me!” chirped Dali with a big grin on his face. “I’m Song Yang’s lucky charm. Whenever I’m there with him, he always solves the case! By the way, Bingxin-meimei[2], what do you specialize in?”

“Forensic pathology!” she answered.

“Wow!” cried Dali. “Does that mean that you’ll be working with the police once you graduate?”

Dali tried his best to get Bingxin to talk to him, but she made short replies to him and kept turning the subject back to the cases that I had solved. They were mostly still classified, so I didn’t have much to tell her. All in all, it was a pretty awkward scene.

After a while, we heard the cook shout, “Your dishes are ready!”

Bingxin was about to get up and fetch the food, but Dali stopped her and said, “Please, let me!”

At the time, none of us would’ve expected that this meal would lead us to another murder case.

1. Meaning ‘big brother’.

2. ‘Little sister’.